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"From tiny Ridgefield, Washington, I saw Phuong Tran make Lava Java an outsized influence on American coffee: her 2004 U.S. Barista Championship win put a small-town cafe on the map as a required stop between Portland and Seattle and helped inspire the rise of great cafes in rural towns across the Pacific Northwest; she later sold Lava Java in 2013 but the ripple effect endures." - Jordan Michelman